Guangdong, Shenzhen / 广东深圳

I spent the week-end in Shenzhen. This city is famous for its still very popular kitsch theme parks like Window on the world or Shenzhen folk culture village. Therefore, I am very fond of the place I visited1: an abandoned waterpark from the 1980s! An early waterpark in a growing megalopolis As you might know, […]

« Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away »

Philip K. Dick, How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, 1978

Urban exploration in China: a fascinating escape

Have you ever wanted to travel without going too far? Looking for and finding lost places in a city is a challenge but usually worth the efforts. Entering abandoned places feels like stepping in another dimension of space and time: the urban picture one saw before is now distorted, and one accesses an alternate reality, standing there just as “true” as the “normal” one, but less visible, less accessible, less well-known... And that is the beauty of it, when the materiality of the place, its ecosystem, tells us its story without any intermediary. Some fear the danger or the dirtiness, but others can appreciate a true magic in the forbidden, forgotten, urban space.
In China, this is not a massive hobby. And yet, exploring abandoned or hidden places in Chinese cities is really stimulating: Western/Chinese style buildings from the beginning of the 20th century, socialist architecture of the 1950s, fast urbanization and gigantic ambitious planning projects turning out to be failures... I want to share some discoveries without putting the places at risk: please don't ask me for precise locations, the search is part of the fun anyway!